


Something, Something, Happily Ever After

by krakenmyheart



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krakenmyheart/pseuds/krakenmyheart
Summary: Reginald Hargreeves adopted six children and gave them the world. On the anniversary of his death, they gather to celebrate the life he led and enjoy the company of each other, sharing in the love and happiness of a stable life. But when things seem too good to be true, Diego knows they usually are. If only he could convince the others.





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Post Dallas, pre Hotel Oblivion. It's hard writing these dynamics when you try taking out the dysfunction, but it was nice to imagine even just a little bit. Some warning for language/violence.

Something’s wrong.

The hair rose on Diego’s arms and every inch of his body kept repeating an alarm, something’s wrong, something’s wrong. He blinked up at the sky and it blinked back at him, flashing between blue and black so quick it hardly looked real at all, like television static cutting through a clear picture right as you change the channel. He stared up, waiting for it to happen again, but the crisp, seamless blue settled and the image remained. The longer he watched the clearer it became, and soon he could hardly remember why he was looking at all.

“What’s wrong?” Vanya asked beside him. He hadn’t heard her come up, a surprise since her wheelchair usually had a squeak to it. With her hand working as a viser against the sun, she glanced up at the sky in the same manner.

“Nothing,” he said, lowering his gaze to meet her. “Nothing’s wrong.”

The words felt foreign somehow, hard to push out, but Vanya smiled and the feeling passed by with a cool breeze. He gripped the handles of her wheelchair and pushed her up the stone path toward the mansion door.

“Thanks for giving me a ride,” she said. “I know it’s hard fitting my chair in your van with all that equipment.”

“I have a show tonight, it’s not usually so bad.”

“A show,” she repeated with a small nod. “I remember those.”

Diego paused at the front steps before lifting the chair up one ledge at a time. Dad never had a chance to make the place accessible before he died.

“Why don’t you come along? You could play a song or two.” It was a joke, but there was hope in there somewhere deep down. He missed her in the band, didn’t ever feel the same without her, but it wasn’t easy after the crash, especially not for Vanya. She laughed small, quiet with her breath, then shook her head.

“I would love to go elevate your band, but I’m busy. You’re not the only one with plans, y’know.”

They stopped at the front door and he came around to look at her. “Your book?”

“I got a publishing deal, which means a tight schedule so no more rock and rolling for me, hot-head.” 

“A publishing deal?” he asked, half disbelief, half pride.

Her eyes lit up at the mention of it, and he could feel the excitement spilling out of her as she smiled, contagious in a way.

“You deserve it,” he told her. “What’s it about, this book of yours?”

The words were cut off as the front door swung open. Luther stood inside, staring at the two of them expectantly. The harsh look in his eyes lasted a few seconds before fading to something slightly less constrained. “You’re late, as usual.”

“You ever think about removing that stick from your ass,” Diego said, pushing past him and trying to run over his foot with Vanya’s chair. She gave him a disapproving look over her shoulder and he steered clear. “There was traffic.”

“Maybe Klaus is stuck in it, too,” Luther said with a roll of his eyes. 

He was always the first to arrive, and loudest about saying so, like there was a prize attached to being punctual. Still trying to please dad, even while the man was in the ground. Two years didn’t seem to make a difference, whenever they gathered Luther would do his best to carry the legacy thrust upon him, and he did it with his head held high. That’s the attitude that got him to the moon, and would do so again in another few months on NASA’s next trip. A real life, bonafide astronaut. Diego wanted to sneer, but the moment passed.

Allison appeared from the kitchen with a glass of wine in one hand and the bottle in the other. With a smile, she asked, “Anybody want one? It’s the expensive kind.”

The answer was mostly unanimous.

They sat around the family room, passing the bottle between the four of them and reminiscing beneath the framed childhood portrait that hung above the dustless mantle. Luther, stiff as a board, didn’t drink, but he made a toast to Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a man who adopted six orphans and gave them each the whole world. Diego stared up at the image from the chair he sat, letting Luther’s words drift in and out of his ears without taking hold. The family stood neatly, arranged so each had equal spotlight, outfitted in their Sunday best. Luther and his broad smile, Allison beside him, eyes sparkling. She loved the attention. Vanya sat pensive up front. Klaus had just been caught giving her bunny ears with his fingers. Diego remembered stepping on his foot in retaliation because he knew that Vanya wouldn’t. Then there was Ben, who hadn’t made it out from the crash that claimed pieces of each of them, and whose presence hung heavy across the family ever since.

The day of the photo came back to Diego so clear. The burn of the camera flash, his face hurting from that fake smile, the itch of his blazer. Dad took them out for ice cream afterward, which made the ordeal worth it. But there was a space in the middle of the picture that blurred, a void deepening, twisting until the whole thing looked wrong, like something—someone—was missing.

The bottle of wine stopped against his arm with Vanya waiting for him to take it, leaning over in her wheelchair with a look of concern across her face. She had been trying to get his attention, repeating his name until he finally heard it through the static. Luther and Allison stared at him with similar confusion.

“You’re okay?” Allison said, draped over the leather sofa. For a moment it was hard to tell whether it was a question or a statement. He caught her eyes before taking the bottle from Vanya and having a drink, then another one.

“I’m fine,” he said, swallowing it down hard.

The conversation started up again like it hadn’t stopped at all. Tales of Hargreeves’ generosity, his compassion, his devotion to family. It all made sense on paper, the proof plastered over the walls around them—artwork and photographs, awards and trophies celebrating each of them—but Diego remained quiet, a cold growing in his chest that stayed there all throughout dinner.

Klaus finally showed up by the time the food was half gone, sauntering into the dining room like he hadn’t missed most the day, half-drunk by the look of his unsteady gait. Allison had set a plate aside for him and he took his usual seat across from Diego, gripping the edge of the table with both hands to keep from toppling over. 

“Traffic,” he remarked, looking straight at Luther as he said it, a slight shrug in his shoulders. “I didn’t miss the excitement, did I?”

“You missed the wine,” Allison said. “Though apparently not the whiskey.”

“This is a memorial, not a party,” Luther added.

Klaus didn’t respond to either of them, focusing instead on the food in front of him, digging into his steak like it was personal. The knife dragged sloppily against the porcelain, spilling red juice across the plate. “I’m all for the celebration, but dad wouldn’t want us moping around two years after the fact.” He stuffed a bite into his mouth and hardly finished chewing as his eyes rose to meet Diego. “You’re with me on this, right?”

The question caught him off guard.

“It’s called paying respect,” Luther said and Diego was glad when the attention of the table moved away from him.

“I am paying it,” Klaus said. “Just in my own way.”

Luther’s hand tightened around his fork so hard it looked as if it might crumble beneath the pressure, but his face softened suddenly, and whatever problem had been stewing within him dissipated before becoming harsh. His tone turned apologetic. “It’s a tough day for everyone, but we’re doing the best we can. I’m proud of all of you, and I know dad would be, too.”

The words hung between them, sinking in deep to mend a shared wound. Allison leaned over the table and pat Luther’s arm as if to say the feeling’s mutual, and Vanya gave him a slight nod of appreciation. Klaus pulled a flask from his coat pocket and poured a shot onto the floor which pooled at his feet like piss.

“For the old man.”

The empty chair at the head of the table had a presence to it and Diego could imagine dad sitting there with a glass of his favorite brandy, helping him with his schoolwork, more and more patient even when he had to repeat himself ten times over before Diego finally understood, and even when he didn’t. He never once gave up on any of them, even when the rest of the world did and that very thought warmed him, pushed everything else aside. It was hard to imagine where he might be—where any of them might be—without Reginald Hargreeves. 

Diego took his glass in hand and raised it with the others.

“To dad,” he said, washing away the bitter taste that lingered in the back of his throat. 

Vanya met him by the door later, when dinner was over and Klaus was mostly unconscious and Allison had her family slideshow on the projector for Luther, flaunting photos of her wedding, dad’s look of pride walking her down the aisle, her daughter… 

“We’re staying the night,” she said, gesturing back to the family room where gleeful voices carried down the hall. “You should come back after your show. It’s been too long since we’ve all been out here like this, I forgot how nice it is just to be home.”

He nodded. The night had shaped up well, but it’d be a long drive back to the mansion after the show, so he thought he’d make it a bargain. 

“I’ll stay, but only if you dust off your guitar for the night and help me write a song that Luther will hate.”

“Should be easy,” she said with a touch of mischief. “He’ll hate anything louder than a single decibel.” She held out her hand to make the deal, and Diego didn’t hesitate taking it.

He was half way out the door before he stopped to look at her, making her way back to the excitement where she belonged. “You never told me what your book was about.”

She turned her chair around to face him. “Family.”

“Family,” he repeated, enjoying the way the word felt on his tongue.

“Yeah, but they’re special.”

“Special how?”

“They save the world, of course.”

Her smile lit like a spark, spreading to Diego all the way to the door where he couldn’t help but return it.

“Sounds unrealistic,” he said, the smirk lasting through his words.

Playfully, Vanya raised her middle finger and it was the last thing he saw before he left.

The show came and went like the rest of them, a blur of sweat and noise and mayhem just the way Diego liked it, and cathartic in the way he needed. Music kept his blood pumping and after a day spent on the cusp of here and there, it was nice feeling right again. The world steadied itself each time his fingers bled on a bass string and by the time they were raw his whole body lit up like a molotov cocktail. When it was over, he always wanted more, and that’s when he realized a piece of him was missing. Maybe it always would be.

Ears still ringing, he carried his equipment out to the van. The rest of the band lurked on girls and downed beers and other things in the bar bathroom but none of that interested Diego as much as the residual music radiating in his bones, singing like a tuning fork. He’d savor it for as long as it would last.

Crisp air cooled the sweat on his face as he forced his bass into the growing mess of the van and slammed the doors shut. The next band began their set inside and for a moment he stood listening to the raucous drone vibrating through the walls. He considered going back inside, playing off the rest of his steam in the mosh pit, but something kept him away. 

In the dark of the bar’s alleyway he hardly caught the flash of light reflecting off the back window and by the time he turned around there were already four men approaching, closing in all around him with curious eyes that swept over the van. One of them went straight to the window. Glancing inside, he whistled, and the one that stood directly in front of Diego took that as his cue, flipping a knife from his pocket and pointing the blade like a gun. The other two followed suit. 

Diego raised his arms tentatively, hoping not to alarm anyone into gutting him like a fish. “My wallets in my back pocket. You can take it.”

“Where are the keys?” the one at the window asked.

“You can’t have the van,” Diego said. 

“We weren’t asking permission.”

The knife jutted forward, closer to his face but Diego kept still, studying the blade beneath the dull light of the moon, calm despite the circumstances, though somewhere deep in his mind he heard screaming. It dulled against the muffled music, lost before it could reach him. 

“I got seventy bucks and a coupon for a chinese buffet, that’s a good score for the night, don’t you think?”

The man at the window walked back, a yellow smile sprawled over his face. “You’re a stupid motherfucker aren’t you? Look at that, somebody already got his eye. What happened there, they weren’t happy with their blowjob?”

They each laughed in turn, squeaking like the rats they were, but Diego was stuck on the question nonetheless.

“It was a car accident,” he said, but the images didn’t add up. “A plane—a plane crash.”

No. That wasn’t right. 

The laughter stopped around him and now they only looked at him like he was insane, a joke, trying to make sense of the flashing memories that sped through him—a slideshow of fallacies and bad dreams that blurred together until he couldn’t tell which was which.

The men stepped closer, heels digging into pavement, knives ready, reaching for the keys, his wallet, whatever they could take and just before they did, the music quieted inside the bar, giving way to a ringing silence and finally he understood the words blaring inside of him.

Wake up.

Diego took a breath. His mind went blank, and his body moved on it’s own. He sidestepped the first knife, and cracked the man’s arm in half, painting blood across the side of the van. The bone snapped through skin and he sank to the ground in tears. The others came at him all at once, but they were sloppy with fear and Diego was cool as ice. His knuckles crushed against them like it was their place to be. Blood splattered across the concrete. The music came back to him in new ways, better ones. Their wails were a symphony. Two more collapsed, coughing and choking in all kinds of broken ways. The fourth turned and ran, stumbling over his own feet. Diego reached for one of the knives that were left abandoned, and without so much as a blink, he let it fly from his fingertips. It turned midair before finding its target, blade plunging deep into the man’s back. He fell face first and stayed there motionless.

A stillness settled through the alley as the next song began inside. A rhythmic drum pounded like a heartbeat, but Diego’s was still and steady as he looked over the carnage surrounding him. A deepening red sprawled across the fabric of his shirt and it wasn’t until he looked that he realized it wasn’t his blood. None of it was his blood.

His hands shook with ten times the high he got from his bass and suddenly he knew what piece of him was missing if only he could grasp it, but everything was far away. He leaned back against the van and tried to catch his breath while his body fell back into itself—heavy and tired and sore, heart beating hard again. He looked over the fallen men one more time, and couldn’t understand how he’d done it, like walking into a life that wasn’t his own.

Or somehow maybe just a memory.


	2. PART TWO

The water scorched Diego’s hands but didn’t do much to clean the blood from his knuckles, hard and rough as he scrubbed. The others had retreated to bed by the time he got back to the house and he was grateful for the quiet that greeted him, sneaking into the bathroom before anyone noticed he was back.

He left the broken bodies of the would-be thieves in the alley where they fell, but the mess stayed with him, stuck behind his vision each time he blinked. The feel of their bones beneath his fists lingered the same way their blood did and each time he moved his fingers he could feel it again like an old friend. A welcome one.

The image in the mirror wasn’t so accommodating, watching him with a scowl. It looked different from how he felt, like there was a distance between his body and his own reflection—a void.

A hard knock on the door pulled him away from it, and Vanya’s voice called from the other side. He hurried to dry his hands, covering the open sores of his knuckles with a towel as he opened the door a crack.

“Thought I heard you come in. I was in the den, the others—” Her words dropped out from her mouth, eyes raising to his neck where he missed a smear of leftover blood. “Are you okay? What happened, whose blood is that?” A hundred more questions in rapid fire, but the answers still hadn’t come to him so he focused on the only thing he knew for sure.

“It’s not my blood.”

As he stepped outside the bathroom, Vanya backed her chair up to look at the whole of him, brows furrowed, mouth hanging open. He tried to assure her it was fine but even he couldn’t believe the words he spoke. He knew that it wasn’t, that something strange had happened and that maybe he was losing his mind, but he left those parts out and settled on the half-truth instead.

“I was robbed—er, almost robbed,” he told her in the kitchen with his knuckles on ice because she had insisted he’d do so. He tried to play it off with a shrug. “Adrenaline, and all that.” 

Vanya was quiet a moment as she chewed on that, her eyes lost in the stain of blood across his shirt, wondering no doubt what he’d done to spill so much. She almost looked scared, but she was good at hiding it.

“Did you call the cops?”

“No, it’s fine. They didn’t take anything.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay?”

He nodded, and forced a smile through the tension for her sake. Her expression softened in response. They sat for a few minutes more going over the night before he helped her up the stairs to her bedroom. Her legs didn’t carry much weight, but with her arm draped over his shoulder she could bend her knees and mimic a walk. She was always stronger than she knew.

She settled on the edge of the bed and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket, handing it to him before he left. He unfolded it to see scrawled, messy notes, lyrics and melodies that he could already hear playing in his head. The title at the top read: Ode To The Stick Up Luther’s Ass.

Diego smiled for real this time.

“We’ll work on it tomorrow,” Vanya said, pleased with herself and Diego agreed, taking the song back with him as he left her alone.

The halls of the mansion were thick with silence, even his footsteps didn’t make a sound. He glanced down at the words Vanya had written, already making notes of his own when a hand reached from nowhere and pulled him into a dark room. Every muscle in Diego’s body responded aggressively, pushing the attacker hard against the wall, and before he had a chance to think it through his fist was cocked in the air, frozen right in front of Klaus’ face. 

“Jesus, have a drink,” he said, calm despite the circumstance, though a small nervous squeak escaped with his words. He looked cross-eyed at the split knuckles an inch away before Diego let his fingers loosen and fall to his side.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Been a little on edge tonight.”

“I couldn’t tell.”

Klaus hit the light switch and blinded them both momentarily. The room was like a time capsule from fifteen years ago, kept exactly the same as it always was—walls littered with nonsense poetry and art, posters from movies nobody ever heard of before. He picked up a flask from the desk and tossed it over to Diego, which landed in his hands with grace.

“Seriously, have a drink. You look like you could use it more than me.” He glanced over the blood stains but didn’t seem to dwell on it, almost as if it was normal. The thought didn’t make him feel any better but Diego couldn’t argue. He brought the flask to his mouth and nearly choked on the toxic smell alone.

“What is this—battery acid?”

Klaus shrugged. “A little of this, a little of that.” 

Diego choked down a drink anyway. It burned against his throat and kept burning in his stomach. He coughed, trying to clear it from the back of his mouth. He failed.

“It keeps the voices quiet,” Klaus said. His head tilted, ear to the sky, listening to something in the heavy silence. 

“The voices?” Diego asked, a shot of ice running through him. 

“You think I’ve cracked,” he said, convinced of his own insanity. He didn’t sound too bothered by it, just lonely. “Or that I’m stoned, right?” 

“Maybe not.”

The words caught Klaus’ attention, and his eyes glistened. “You hear them too, don’t you? I thought you might.”

Diego swallowed hard. The hair on his arms rose once again. 

“It feels like…” He paused because it sounded crazy. Because it was crazy, and his drunkard brother agreeing with him didn’t change that fact. Only his gut told him something different. “It feels like I’m living in dream.”

Wake up, the voice had told him. In the silence of the mansion he could hear it again, over and over in the tune of his own heartbeat. Wake up. Wake up. Wake. Up. Something’s wrong.

Klaus laid back in his bed, drinking and smoking while Diego told him what had happened after the show—what really happened, not the half-truth he’d given Vanya—how his muscles moved on their own and how he relished in the crack of breaking bones.

“My brother the closet psychopath,” Klaus noted. The flask fell from sloppy fingers as he tried to siphon the last few drops on his tongue. He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world when it slid to the floor. Diego didn’t see the humor in it.

“You mentioned voices,” he said, trying to keep Klaus on track, a task growing more and more difficult as he relit his joint and took a long drag. “What do they tell you?”

“Everything. They’re muffled though, like they’re coming from far away.” Smoke drifted around him like a fog, making his face unrecognizable. 

Diego slid the window open and let the breeze carry the cloud away before taking the joint from his fingers. He set it atop the dresser to burn out on its own, kneeling to meet Klaus’ eyeline on the bed, looking for any slice of clarity he could find. It was buried deep, but it was there and it was honest.

He kept his words slow, hoping Klaus would follow. “What do you remember about the crash?”

“The crash?”

It was a black spot in Diego’s memories, a hole that he couldn’t seem to fill. Everytime he thought he had it figured out, the picture changed to something else. The details were still there—Allison’s mangled arm, his own red-tinged vision, Vanya’s body; broken and lifeless and pale white.

And music. It echoed in his ears like a war zone. Bullets flew past his head, clipping the side of his face as screams filtered in and out through the night around him.

His body tensed, flinching out of the dream. The memory. 

Breathing hard, Klaus’ bedroom came back to him, along with a sharp pain splitting his skull in two and every piece of him was spilling out from the top. He sat on the floor, looking up at his brother who only seemed curious, not concerned. 

“The crash never happened,” Klaus said after a moment.

“What do you mean it never happened?”

“It’s a lie.”

Diego blinked. “How do you know?”

“Ben told me.”

“Ben’s alive?”

He shook his head slowly, and that should’ve been the bottom line. Klaus’ eyes were lidded and heavy and he was on the wrong side of sober and there was no reason to humor his ideas beside the fact that something was wrong, and Diego knew it. Somehow, he knew it.

And Klaus knew it, too. 

“If the crash never happened,” he said, trying to work through the details, “then why do we remember it? And what the hell happened to us instead?”

Klaus didn’t answer. His head fell limp to the side, unconscious or asleep, a line of drool already forming at the corner of his mouth. Diego knew better than to try and wake him, but the conversation followed him to his own room, all the way into morning. 

He forced himself up at dawn, hardly slept a minute, but he wanted to wake before the others. The house was still quiet as he crept to dad’s office, picking the lock on the door though he couldn’t recall ever learning how to do that.

Stacks of books and paperwork greeted him, piled taller than he was, and though nothing had been touched in two years, the room still smelled of fresh air. It should have been comforting, but the whole thing put Diego on edge. He filed through the busy desk, flipping through notebooks and research on nameless inventions, looking for anything he could find on the crash but there was nothing. Nothing about it all. 

“What are you doing?” Luther stood in the doorway, broad shoulders taking up most of the frame. “How’d you get in here?”

“Same door you’re standing in now,” Diego said, hardly looking up. He opened each drawer one by one as Luther held up a keyring and jingled it on his finger.

“Without the key?”

He ignored the question and whatever assumption that went along with it. Of course he was right, but Diego didn’t feel like arguing. 

“Something strange is happening,” he said.

Luther came closer. “Is that blood on your shirt?”

“Did you hear me? Something strange is going on.”

“Yeah,” Luther agreed, voice stern. “It’s you. You’ve been off since you got here yesterday, and now you’re covered in blood.”

Diego dropped the papers from his hand, finally looking up to meet Luther’s eyes. Bones stiff, he rose slowly. “You remember the crash, Luther? What happened that day?”

He was sure of the answer already, certain it would make Luther understand, but he looked at him the way they all looked at Klaus, like he was crazy, not making any sense. Doubt flashed across his face, judgement. Then concern, which was almost worse. 

“Of course I remember the crash.”

Diego’s fingers curled. “How?”

“Dad took us to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.” He made his voice gentle, like Diego was fragile and breaking, like he’d already cracked. “The plane hit turbulence, one of the engines failed. Where’d that blood come from, Diego?”

He shook his head, words fading in and out. He remembered gazing up at the Eiffel Tower once, taking in the size of it. Blood splashed against his shoes, fresh from the bodies who were pushed from the top, but Luther was wrong about what happened. There wasn’t a plane, there was a spaceship. 

“You don’t believe that, do you?” Diego asked. The question hung between them. By the look on his face, Luther was wondering the same thing, but for the wrong reasons.

“It was a horrible accident, I still struggle with it sometimes, too—”

“I’m not,” Diego said. “I’m not struggling with it, because it never happened. Ask Klaus.”

“Klaus?”

Diego sighed, regretting having mentioned it. He tried to bite back the growing frustration, refocusing that anger into a plea. “You’re so concerned about taking care of this family, so listen to me. Something is wrong.”

“I’m trying to help, but I need to know where that blood came from. Did you hurt yourself? Did you take something with Klaus?”

Each question made his teeth grind harder, split knuckles turned white clutching the edge of the desk and Luther didn’t stop. He kept questioning, doubting the way he did, like he knew best. He always knew best. 

“Damnit, Spaceboy.” His hand raked across the messy desk, sending all that paperwork flying through the air in a frenzy. “Wake up!”

Luther took a step back, dumbfounded as the mess settled.

“What did you just call me?”

He stared, the anger slipping from his grasp as they each remembered something that they’d lost, whatever it was. The door of the office swung open, pulling their attention sideways. Allison appeared in the hall with her arms crossed, trying to make sense of the scene she’d walked in on and Vanya sat beside her, disturbed at what had been said.

Diego didn’t know how much they heard. It probably didn’t matter, their eyes reflected the same doubt as Luther’s. He pushed past them without trying to explain himself. Vanya called after him but he ignored her and didn’t look back. 

A buzzing filled his head, one he was getting used to, drowning out the rest of the noise until it was deafening. Each step he took the louder it became, rattling his bones from the inside out, and soon he realized the sound was familiar.

The doorbell.

When he opened the door it stopped altogether. The front steps were empty. He leaned out and looked both ways, glancing over the courtyard and the pathway leading up to the house and still he found nothing. The moment he shut the door, the buzzing returned, just as loud as before, silencing the concerned voices of his siblings.

He looked out once more. The stillness was daunting. Shutting the door slowly, he took one last peek through the crack before he let it close completely and as if on perfect command, the bell rang again.

Diego ripped the door open and before the intruder could dash away, he grabbed him tight by the collar of his shirt, ruffling the pressed fabric, and stared him straight in the eye.

“Listen up, you little twerp, I’m not in the mood for games—”

The boy looked unperturbed at his tone. His hand came up and grasped Diego’s wrist with more strength than seemed possible, before wrenching it back until the bones felt taut, close to breaking. He groaned, and the boy slowly loosened his grip.

“This isn’t a game and I don’t have much time,” he said, straightening his collar and tie. It was a school uniform with checkered print and a coat of arms on the dark jacket that caught Diego’s eye. The symbols made his stomach turn, but not as much as the printed phrase: Ut Malum Pluvia. He repeated it in his head, disgust running through him as he leaned forward, taking a closer look, studying the boy’s face like a foggy photograph. 

“Do I know you?” Diego asked, trying to place those empty, contemptuous eyes. 

The boy raised a brow and his mouth fell open with half a smile. “Amazing. You actually remember, don’t you?”

“Who are you?”

“There’s no time for that.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small metal case, imprinted with the image of an umbrella. “Take this. Ask number three if she’s heard a rumor.”

As the boy handed over the case, his whole body seemed to flicker, like it wasn’t really there in front of him. Diego could see the street through his fading image. 

“Number three? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Allison,” he said, voice cracking like static. Flashes of blue and white enveloped him, cutting across his skin in a lightning storm as the wind circled around them. Diego could barely make out his final words through the feedback. “Ask Allison—she’s heard a rumor.”

An electric shock ran through Diego’s fingers. He dropped the metal case and the boy disappeared altogether.


	3. PART THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written before the show dropped on Netflix so I thought I should clarify something for fans who might not be familiar with the comics lore. Hargreeves's monocle isn't just an ordinary, useless piece of glass. It allows the user to see things/people as they truly are, and that becomes an important plot point in this story.

The breeze settled hard, but the words lingered like ghosts, swirling all around him without meaning. Diego stood outside the door for a moment, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. He double-checked he was alone, walking around the corner of the mansion and back again. No sign of the boy remained except the metal case. When he opened it he found a small, circular eyeglass. A monocle.

His breath hitched in his throat. A growing, festering rage rose up from his gut at the sight of it, burning his insides black. Whatever it was, whatever it meant, it felt like he’d peeled back the lid of a casket and gazed upon a face he didn’t want to see. Without hesitation, he slammed the case shut with stiff fingers and slipped it into his pocket.

Luther waited by the door when he came inside, looking down on him where he stood. Diego had no intention of talking, but when he brushed past, Luther’s hand shot out and clutched his arm.

Diego ripped away from his grasp. “Don’t touch me.”

The rage continued to simmer inside of him though he couldn’t place it, couldn’t pinpoint where it came from, just that it was hungry.

“Vanya told me what happened last night,” Luther said, careful with his words. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it doesn’t matter.” 

Allison stood at the bottom of the stairs, apprehensive to get involved but eavesdropping all the same. The boy’s words repeated in Diego’s head, but he pushed them back momentarily as Luther followed him around to the den, away from her prying eyes. He stopped at the family photo that hung above the mantle and studied it one more time before Luther cut through his concentration.

“You were attacked,” he said. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”

His voice was incessant, annoying, like a fly in Diego’s ear. His jaw hurt from tightening, and his bruised knuckles flared with pain, washing away any leftover thoughts of the boy and his strange warning. He stared up at Luther like a wolf eyeing its prey. His words, filtered through spite, came out slow and cold and sharp. “I wasn’t attacked. They didn’t get the opportunity to lay a hand on me before I beat them each to a pulp, and you know what, Luther? I liked it. What do you think of that?”

Luther blinked. 

“I think you need help,” he said, calm the way he liked to pretend to be, but Diego knew better. Behind that stoic gaze there were questions running deep, a spark dwindling between false memories, growing into a fire before suddenly it died with words repeated cautiously. “I think you need real help.”

Diego scoffed, shaking his head, but he wasn’t surprised to hear it. “You should quit worrying about me and start worrying about yourself.”

“What’s the supposed to mean?”

“Couldn’t make it more clear if I tried.”

Luther took a step closer, the concern in his face giving way to something harsher. “Are you threatening me?”

“Take a guess, flyboy.”

“Why are you so intent on ruining this?”

He towered over Diego like it meant something, all the while stoking embers of rage and hate and jealousy until their flames scorched his insides. The fire spread to his fists, itching beneath the skin.

“Because it’s all a fucking lie.”

“You need to stop with this nonsense,” Luther said. “You’re scaring the others.”

Diego’s lip curled in a snarl, skin burning as the anger ate him up and he realized he wasn’t breathing. He hadn’t been for a while, like something else took over his body. He pointed a harsh finger to the family portrait that hung above them, with the superficial smiles and the muddied memories, but his glare never strayed from Luther. “Tell me you honestly believe there’s nothing wrong with that picture. Look at it and tell me it’s real.”

“Diego—”

“Just look at it.”

Neither one of them shifted their stare. Diego hadn’t expected anything different, not really. Absently, his hand moved to a side table where he found an ornate vase and without so much as a blink, he threw it hard into the photo. Glass exploded in every direction, raining down against the floor in a broken tune. Luther jumped back to avoid it. His eyes finally rose to meet the picture slipping from the fractured frame, before falling back down to Diego, narrow and horrified.

“You need to be committed.”

Diego pulled the photo down, holding it up in front of his face. “Look at the picture, Luther.”

Allison rushed into the den, followed by Vanya in her chair. Her mouth gaped at the shattered mess but Diego ignored them both to focus on Luther’s eyes as he spoke.

“Something’s missing,” he said. “Why can’t we see it?”

“Stop,” Allison demanded and by the sheer force of her tone, Diego almost thought to listen. She crunched over shards of glass on her way over, wedging herself between the two of them like it would make any difference. He caught a scornful look in her eyes. It burned like the fire in his veins. “This is our father’s memorial. We’re supposed to be a family.”

Family. The word left him cold and wanting. 

Luther sighed, letting the fight escape out of him along with his breath. Diego had a harder time letting go. His fingers clutched the photograph so tight it began to wrinkle, sending lines through the image like a broken mirror that spread through each of their faces and split them in half. The blank space in the middle twisted around the crack, forming something new and just before Luther tore the photo away from him, Diego could make out a face in the darkness. The boy in the uniform, hollow eyes waiting, words ringing through the air around them.

“You heard any rumors lately?” Diego asked Allison before he had time to think about it. His own voice sounded foreign to his ears but it left a spark against his tongue. 

Allison stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t know how to answer, but the ringing through his body droned on like an alarm, deafening the rest of her words. Luther’s mouth moved but he couldn’t hear a thing against it. His gaze swept across the walls painted with lies. Even the floor felt wrong beneath his feet, softer somehow. Plastic. Everything around him seemed to curve. For a single moment the edge of the universe became visible and beyond it there was something else, something different, just out of reach.

“You did this,” Diego said under his breath. “Somehow—you did this.”

“Maybe you should lie down,” Luther suggested, but Diego ignored it, eyes sharp on Allison.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Do what? I didn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey!” Luther’s arm came up, pulling Diego back. He hadn’t noticed how close he’d gotten to Allison, or the fear painted across her face, like staring into the eyes of a feral dog. It didn’t matter. He twisted around Luther’s grasp and shoved him away. 

The impact startled them both.

Diego’s voice almost shook. “I said don’t touch me.”

“Then leave Allison alone.”

“I’m fine,” she said but her words went unnoticed.

Luther kept his eyes fixated, looking down at Diego while he spoke. “You have to ruin everything, don’t you?”

“Me?” He laughed bitter. “I’m the one trying to save us.”

“From what?”

The question didn’t have an answer, and Diego couldn’t find the words to explain it, but his gaze settled again on Allison, arms crossed and unamused, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

“From her.”

Allison rolled her eyes hard and as if on instinct Luther stepped in front of her, always protecting her from the world though she was the last one who needed it. 

“You should leave,” he said. There was a warning in his tone, an anger that made the words rumble like an earthquake and finally something felt real. Diego’s fists tightened in response.

“Why don’t you make me?” he asked, words rolling off slow.

The boulder of Luther’s frame stood in front of him, imposing righteous power and authority, and somewhere inside Diego a switch flipped, one that had been turned off some time ago and was happy to flood him with light once again. In it’s own way, it felt like coming home.

The first punch landed against Luther’s jaw so hard Diego felt the impact rattle through his arm, but Luther hardly budged, shoving Allison away from danger, before he answered with his own like a battering ram into Diego’s gut. He nearly fell to his knees, struggling to swallow down the pain and whatever else was clawing its way up his throat, but he couldn’t give Luther an opening. Forcing himself up, he charged forward into his chest and didn’t stop swinging. 

Like a well practiced dance, they knew each other’s moves too well, dodging and hitting in equal parts. Play fights and wrestling matches in the family room flashed through his memory, concealing something else beneath, something violent. 

A fist to the side of the head sent him against the wall and everything flashed black for a heartbeat. Framed pictures of the fake family crashed down. Diego shook his head free of the stars and tackled Luther to the floor. Blood obscured his vision, made everything red. It didn’t matter. Luther’s face split open on the edge of his knuckles. His hands come up to block, waiting for their moment before Luther tossed him aside like he didn’t weigh a pound. A table cracked beneath Diego’s ribs, cutting into his skin, but he didn’t miss a beat. He ripped a split section of wood from the debris and swung it against Luther’s back, causing him to stumble to a knee and take a breath.

“Wake up,” Diego told him, words steady though his hands shook with restlessness. He spit blood onto the carpet and stood over Luther, waiting for his next move, but Allison hurried over before he could make it, scanning over the wreckage with a look of horror set deep into her face.

She went to Luther’s side, helped him up though he didn’t need it, and rose to meet Diego’s eye without ever hiding her own disgust. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

The question brought up too much to sort through, answers that didn’t sound right suddenly, and as Vanya pushed herself towards them, staring like she didn’t know him at all, the sharpest sliver of regret shot through him. He tried to force it back but it remained like an open wound. It didn’t feel so important now, the lies, whatever they were. The fire that had gripped him just moments before left him all at once empty.

The room had been trashed during the fight, pieces of a vague life scattered around him as a reminder of what he had ruined.

“You need to leave,” Allison said, watching him hard like a threat. 

Nobody else argued it, least of all Diego. The air shifted with the glares of his siblings, pushing him away until he was the only one on the other side. Vanya didn’t say a word at all, and as he walked past, her eyes dropped to the floor and stayed there. 

He forced himself to keep his head forward as he left, afraid of what he might find if he looked back. The blank, fearful stares of the others already imprinted behind his vision like a plague. He sat in the van with the engine running, trying to drown the thought with music playing too loud, to escape the voices that told him he was wrong and the ones that told him he wasn’t. He couldn’t tell which one was worse anymore, not that it mattered. Either way he was alone.

The passengers side door flew open and Klaus climbed in beside him, grimacing at the sound of the music.

“This is terrible,” he said, voice raised to carry over the noise before he turned the volume all the way down. “Like alley cats fucking in a dumpster.”

Diego let the comment slide without response, lost in his own surprise for a moment as Klaus leaned back to get comfortable, resting his bare feet on the dashboard like nothing strange had happened at all. He closed his eyes, but must have read Diego’s confusion because the corner of his mouth curved into a smile.

“Apparently you’re insane, which makes you the only good company around here.”

“Is this how you feel all the time?” he asked.

Klaus shrugged. “You get used to it.”

There was a weight to his words that made Diego feel worse than he had before, but his brother was content in that fact, worries sliding down his shoulders like raindrops. 

“You know something’s wrong here,” he said, waiting for the calm to crumble, only it didn’t. Their conversation from the night before played in his head, but he wasn’t sure Klaus remembered, or even cared. He sat up in the seat and looked serious. 

“I think for the first time in our lives something is right.” He paused and let his voice turn to a whisper. “Rumor has it we’re happy.”

The blood in Diego’s veins ran cold. Without another thought, he reached into his pocket for the metal case that was given to him by the boy at the door. He held the monocle in hand, letting the sick, twisting feeling in his stomach consume him as he finally brought the glass to his eye.

The sky curved down like a fishbowl. Walls crumbled into ash. The whole damn mansion fell and the ruins nearly buried them all, but in the wreckage Diego saw the truth. It hit him like a truck, knocking the memories around until the picture was clear again. Until he finally woke up. The air rushed back into his lungs so fast he nearly choked on it, and blood trailed out from his nose as Allison’s distant words repeated.

_I heard a rumor that we’re happy._

“None of this is real,” he said. The words escaped by themselves as the life he’d really led flooded back to him—the life they all had—cold and loveless. Empty. 

The steady drone of the van’s engine filled the silent spaces between them. 

“What is real, anyway?” Klaus asked finally, gazing out the window, at the mansion that was there and wasn’t there at the same time. 

Diego ignored the question. “Allison’s been fucking with all of us.”

“Probably.”

“You knew all along?”

“Not really, but I had a feeling just like you,” he said. “The dead don’t lie.”

“And you weren’t going to say anything?” Diego asked, swallowing down the urge to smack him. His fingers tightened around themselves, trying to clutch onto the things he knew were the truth before he forgot them once again. The memories bit back like thorns in his palm.

Klaus didn’t bother facing him. “I might’ve eventually, but it was nice, wasn’t it? Being normal. I thought we could all use the vacation.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Admit it,” he said. “You liked it.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all a lie.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Blood from Diego’s nose dripped down to his shirt, and he wiped it with the back of his hand before turning the engine off. He knew what Klaus was suggesting, knew there were a thousand different reasons it was a bad idea, but still a part of the fantasy pulled him in. The memories still felt real, tangible, even if they were only dreams. A happy childhood from recycled scripts played like a tape in his head, but the screen was dusty and cracked and the footage scrambled halfway in.

Some things just weren’t meant to be.

Klaus followed him out of the van, up toward the mansion, trying to reason with him as if he was the one who needed it. He stopped Diego at the door, standing in his way before he could get inside.

“They’re happy in there,” he said. “Do you want to be the one who takes that away?”

Diego glanced down at the monocle, grip tightening against the frame. “I’m not the one who did.”

Klaus let out a long breath, shoulders slumping before he stepped away and let Diego by.

The others were busy picking up the pieces of the life they never lived, but the sound of the door slamming brought their attention upward. Vanya inched back in her chair. Luther stood immediately, blocking Diego’s path to Allison, and ready to fight again if he had to. Despite the fresh bruise beneath his eye, Diego could go another round but it wouldn’t do any good. He pushed the monocle into Luther’s palm instead and spoke low.

“Why don’t you open your eyes and see what this place really is.”

Luther squinted down at his hand, but ignored the suggestion. “I don’t want to go through this again.”

“Then listen to me.” He looked past him to Allison, who glared right back. “Whatever you did, you need to fix it.”

“Leave her alone,” Luther snapped, pushing him away. “I won’t say it again.”

His hand on Diego’s chest was like an invitation, and Diego struggled not to push back. He focused the anger in his words instead.

“You think any of us were lucky enough to have a life like this? Hargreeves never loved us, and he never wanted a family. If you would’ve accepted that in the real world, then you wouldn’t be stupid enough to believe it now.”

“The real world?” 

It was Vanya’s voice cutting through the silence. Her eyes narrowed, confusion and hurt wrapped around her like a second skin. Diego turned away, guilty all the sudden. Klaus sat down on the base of the staircase, leaning against the banister. He shrugged at Diego with a look on his face that said I told you so.

Diego continued anyway.

“None of this ever happened. Dad sent us on missions to save the world, he didn’t take us on vacations to Paris. There wasn’t any plane crash, we were soldiers spilling our blood for him and he let Ben die. Remember?”

He could’ve kept going, recounting all the times Hargreeves’ failed them. The memories flooded through him like new again, but with each one he found himself burning closer to empty. A candle at the end of the wick, struggling to hang on. 

Allison, with a handful of broken picture frames, shook her head in disbelief. “Are you listening to yourself?” Her eyes fell to Luther. “You don’t believe this, do you?”  
He didn’t answer, or rather, he couldn’t. The life had drained out from him as he slowly brought the monocle down from his eye, nose bleeding the same way Diego’s had when he peered through.

“I don’t want to believe it,” he said quietly before he brought the glass up again, circling the mansion with it, just to make sure. He ended with his gaze on Allison and she took a step back. “He’s right.”

“No,” she said, hugging the frames tight against her, like they were the only things keeping her tied to shore. She wanted to believe the lies she spun, but Diego could see doubt bubbling to the surface, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. In some ways, he couldn’t blame her. All they ever wanted was a normal life.

Luther approached her slowly, trying to reach her beneath the fantasy. It wouldn’t be long until it all crashed down around them. Diego wanted to savor it one last time before it did but he turned away instead.

The picture frames in Allison’s hands clattered to the floor.

Her words filled the air with the crackle of electricity.

“I heard a rumor that none of this is real.”

And so, as she finished, it wasn’t.

The whole world turned upside down, and when it righted, the mansion was in ruins. Pieces of it fell from the sky, twirling through the air like snowflakes all around them. Memories turned to dreams. Reality, sharp as a knife, cut through what was left of a life that could have been. They were whole again. And broken.

“About time,” Number Five said, appearing from nowhere, it seemed. He was good at that. He spun a snow globe in his hand. The glass suffered a slight crack but the house inside was intact. Orange light emanated from the little windows and there was a small van parked out front. “I was starting to think you’d never make it back.”

“We were inside there?” Luther asked, kneeling down to look at the toy through squinted eyes. 

Five shrugged. “Somewhere like it.”

A pocket dimension, he explained, or tried to. Whatever it was, it sucked them all in like a black hole. Five executed a micro jump to escape the ripple of the effect before Allison could finish the sentence that created it, and he spent a week trying to find a way to reach them.

Memories of an entire life ran through Diego, condensed into mere days, then ripped away altogether. Made his head hurt. Made everything hurt. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Allison said, her voice shaking as she struggled to steady herself against the ruins of reality. “I just wanted to help. I just wanted to be—”

“Happy,” Klaus said, with a sideways glance to Diego. 

He ignored it and nobody said anything else for a long time.

“It’s interesting,” Number Five told Diego afterwards. “You knew something was wrong before I ever reached out.”

“What’s your point?” he asked, though he was sure he didn’t want to hear it.

“Klaus’ ability to speak to the dead helped open his eyes to reality, but you?” He clicked his tongue, thinking it over. “You just couldn’t accept a happily ever after.”

Diego had nothing to say. He gave the metal case which housed the monocle back to Number Five, and as he pulled it from his pocket, something else slipped out. A folded up piece of paper, hand written and full—An Ode to the Stick Up Luther’s Ass.

He stared at it for a moment. The memories still felt real, but he knew they weren’t. The warmth of his father’s embrace, family baseball games, and vacations. They were only shadows, fleeting and empty.

Nonetheless, he folded up the paper and tucked it away to keep.


End file.
